XL
THE COLOUR OF THE WEST
The country all about Kilcoultra is typically wild and melancholy. The fields stretch, barren and yellowing, strewn with giant stones. Except where sombre belts of woodland mark the great estates, there is scarcely a tree to break the monotony; a monotony intensified by the low, unending lines of rough grey walls that border every road. But there is a kind of poetry even in this desolation, and a satisfaction to all who love the freedom of unbounded horizons. Then the mountains of Clare stretch their incomparable plum and grape colours against the sky. The colour of Ireland is a thing scarcely realized over here, where, somehow, hues seem washed out. “In England everything has got grey in it,” an artist friend of ours discontentedly avers.
We are taken across the county to a castle standing by a lake, which is a place of wonder. It is a castle no older, in its mediæval sturdiness, than the Gothic mansion we are staying in, but quite as convincingly built. Loughcool is a realm of beauty. At the end of the long approach the road rises very steeply through a stern grove of pines. All at once, as you approach the summit of this dark woodland, the ground breaks away abruptly on the right, and, between the pines, far, far below, lies the lake smiling, and on its banks what is called “the hidden garden”—a stretch of fairy beauty. Words are poor things to describe the vision which breaks so unexpectedly upon the eye. Everything that gardening art can do has been accomplished at Loughcool. You have terraces and a glory of roses overhanging the water even this late September; and there are “Auratum” Lilies rising in splendid groups on each side of a grass walk that runs grandly into the woods between stately trees. The lady of Loughcool is fighting a hard fight to make Azaleas and Rhododendrons grow in the limy soil; but it is a question whether the struggle is worth while.
“We have given it up,” says the sensible châtelaine of Kilcoultra.
We smiled privately. Villino Loki has at least some points of superiority.
We made another expedition, over the border into County Clare. A white plastered pillared house this, dating from the terrible neo-Italian period of the end of the last century. There dwells an eccentric gentleman, one of the chief instigators of the Young Ireland movement; but he was unfortunately away. We visited the house, and were entertained by his housekeeper. This lady’s name was Mrs. Quinlan, and she was an old friend of our hostesses. We think we enjoyed that afternoon as well as any of our excursions; and certainly we laughed as much as ever.